Project 3 — Digital Curation by Jaelin Tate
A history of Pagers and Beepers
Introduction
For Project 3 I chose to research Pages and beepers as my underrepresented digital technology. “Pagers were originally designed and built in the 1950’s but they didn’t really take hold in terms of popularity until the 1980's” (Willings, 2015). Pagers are one-way communication devices that people usually used to contact emergency services like doctors, cops and safety personnel. Pagers and beepers were very popular in the 1980’s and 90’s until modern mobile phones started to rise in the early 2000’s. Even with the decline of pagers and beepers in the 2000’s the digital technology still survived due to its durability, resilience and better coverage. “Canada was still paying as much as $18.5 million for its pager service in 2013” (Willings, 2015). Pagers and Beepers fit the underrepresented digital technology because it’s a type of technology that most Generation Z adults won’t remember or know. When I asked my friends if, they remembered what pagers and beepers were most of them said they didn’t know what is was.
Explanation of History
Hyperlink: https://www.spok.com/blog/throwback-thursday-history-pagers/
When it was invented: “The first telephone pager system was invented in 1949 by Alfred J. Gross in New York City” (Pager, 2021). Physicians were paid $12 per month for the new telephone service and carried a 200-gram pager that would receive phone messages within a 20 kilometer distance from a transmitter tower. By the 1960’s John Francis Mitchell combined pagers and beepers with Motorola’s walkie-talkie/automobile radio technologies. This combination transformed the Pager into the best emergency personnel device available.
Initial Impact: The initial impact of the pagers and beepers was revolutionary. Motorola was the first telephone company to introduce their pager version to the public in the 1960’s. After their release of Motorola pager they dominated the telephone industry for 40-years. This new technology saved millions of lives by allowing people to contact emergency centers to get help. “By 1994 there were 61 million pagers in use, largely because pagers are much more affordable than any other mobile communication method during that time. (Spok, 2019). In 1995, Motorola created the world’s first two-way pager which allowed users to receive text messages, reply to messages, and emails. Sadly this would be the end of Motorola and pagers because other telephone companies caught on to the idea. Research In Motion created the first BlackBerry which had a full keyboard and graphical display that outmatched Motorola’s Pager. In 2001, Motorola began tot exit the paging space which end a 40-year era of dominance in the telephone industry.
Present Impact: “As of 2021 there are over 2 million pagers, let us be the first to tell you that Pagers are not only alive and well, but are the backup communication source relied upon by people who absolutely have to be accessible.(Magento, 2019). With the rapid growth of smart phones the decline of Pagers was inevitable, but still an irreplaceable device used by a small amount of people. The easy use, privacy, reliability, low-cost, and security of Pagers and Beepers are the reasons why they are still around now. Older folks depend on these type of devices because smart phones might be too much for them to get use too. The impact that Pagers and Beepers now is low, but still useful for many older individuals.
Hyperlink: https://pagersdirect.net/why-are-millions-of-pagers-still-in-use/
References
“Pager.” Wikipedia, Wikimedia Foundation, 18 Apr. 2021, en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pager.
Willings, Adrian. “36 Obsolete Technologies That Will Baffle Modern Generations.” 6 Obsolete Technologies That Will Baffle Modern Generations, Pocket-Lint, 25 Feb. 2021, www.pocket-lint.com/gadgets/news/141336-33-obsolete-technologies-that-will-baffle-modern-generations.
“Why Pagers Still Matter: The History of Pagers (1921–2019).” 3 July, 2019, Spok, www.spok.com/blog/throwback-thursday-history-pagers/.
“Why Are Millions of Pagers Still in Use?”, Magento Commerce, Pagers Direct, pagersdirect.net/why-are-millions-of-pagers-still-in-use/.